


Coming Back Around Again

by Maple



Category: Highlander: The Series
Genre: Gen, Time Loop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-08
Updated: 2011-04-08
Packaged: 2017-10-17 18:57:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/180146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maple/pseuds/Maple
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Methos receives a mysterious postcard.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Coming Back Around Again

**Author's Note:**

> The Major Character Death is an impermanent permanent sort. It gets resolved by the end.

The postcard was on the floor mat when he arrived home that day. It was the only piece of mail that had come and it rested on the welcome mat picture side up. It was not the picture that was of any interest--the photo on the one side was a conglomeration of Seacouver's tourist attractions and the postcard was readily available at any drugstore for a quarter--but the writing on the other side was a different matter.

It was his own, and he knew with certainty that he had not written it.

"Make sure you go to the warehouse district tonight. #43. Don't be late."

Methos read it again, but could make little of it. It wasn't a photocopy, it wasn't a pastiche of old handwritten letters thrown together, it was real ink on real cardstock, and it was his handwriting- -telling him to do something that hadn't even crossed his mind at all. He looked at the stamp, but it was a generic first class one, and there wasn't even a postmark on it, canceling it. He could probably pop the thing back in a mailbox and it'd come straight back to him. There was no return address, of course.

He was supposed to meet up with Joe and go out to a bar on the other side of the city to see if a band playing there was worth signing up for a stint at Joe's.

Methos folded the postcard and put it in his back pocket, considering his options for a long moment. Then he called Joe to cancel.

Anyone else's handwriting and he would have made for the hills, but something about this postcard raised the hairs on the back of his neck, and although he had the distinct feeling he was a puppet, he was going to see how it all played out.

******

 

That night, he skulked around in the shadows of Warehouse #43, until he began to feel like a fool.

Just as he decided to leave, he heard the distinctive and familiar clang of swords. Dueling Immortals.

Cautiously he crept around the corner. Two men were going at it full throttle and they were evenly matched. He could see the face of one, dripping with sweat, full of concentration. The other's back was to him.

Methos felt the moments slipping by him, but why he had needed to be here, he had no idea--until the man with his back to him went down under a flurry of slashes and Methos could finally see who it was.

"MacLeod!" Methos bellowed, reacting on instinct. "No!"

MacLeod's opponent paused for the barest fraction of a moment at Methos' yell, and that was enough. MacLeod rolled backwards to his feet and it was his opponent's head that fell instead of his own.

Methos sagged against the wall and watched as the Quickening lit up the world.

*****  
*****

He gave the welcome mat a cursory look, but there was no mail, and Methos bounded up the stairs to the bedroom. He needed to change and meet Joe over at that west-end bar to see some band with a ridiculous name.

Methos sailed out of the house, the door banging behind him. A few minutes later he'd snagged Joe and they'd paid their entry fee and were watching the Lonely Goat Blues Band. The band was pretty good. They skirted the blues on some of their songs, bringing it up-tempo just a tad, and the main singer was charismatic. The audience responded well to his humor and banter.

The show was pitch-perfect until sometime just shy of midnight when the power went out for a few minutes.

Joe's cellphone rumbaed for attention in the dark and he answered it, the little blue light of the screen illuminating a scant few inches into the darkened bar. "No!" he cried in anguish, head falling forward, and he sagged against Methos' side. Methos felt an iron band squeeze at his chest.

"Joe?"

"It's Duncan. He's gone."

*****  
*****

The postcard was on the floor mat when he arrived home that day. It was the only piece of mail that had come and it rested on the welcome mat picture side up. Three scenes of touristy Seacouver beckoned to him: enjoy the ocean-side, enjoy the business district and shopping, enjoy the historical area. He could buy five of these for a dollar in any drugstore in the city.

Methos stared at it, a weak feeling of déjà vu flitting through him and then gone. He picked it up and turned it over, seeing his own handwriting, which was incredibly bizarre because he was sure he had never written it.

"Make sure you go to the warehouse district tonight. #43. Don't be late." Then, boldly written at the bottom in all capital letters: "DO NOT FORGET TO REPOST THIS."


End file.
